Not An Easy Fix
by LostToStardust
Summary: Crazy Diamond can fix almost anything, save for the dead and broken hearts. Instead, those can only be fixed with time and compassion, respectively. - A Secret Santa gift I wrote last year that I'm now posting here (and Ao3) to archive it.


Original A/N, Dec. 26, 2017: Merry (belated) Christmas, imstillsleepy! I'm your Secret Santa for the jjba-secret-santa event! All your ships and favorite characters are top tier, but I eventually settled on some good, old fashioned Josuyasu. If you have an Ao3 account, message me and I'll gift this to you there too!

A/N, Dec 12, 2018: As said in the description, this was a gift for imstillsleepy on Tumblr during a JJBA Secret Santa event last year. As for why I'm posting it now, well, Tumblr's kinda dying and I want to archive this since I'm actually really proud of this still and I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle.

Josuke held the belief that he and his mother were very welcoming people. After all, he had politeness drilled into him by both his mother and his grandfather from a very young age. They liked having guests over and tried to be gracious hosts. If a door-to-door salesman or like came by they would try to decline the politest way they could. Trouble only ever really started if the solicitor was particularly stubborn, then there would be a personal invitation from the Higashikata's to politely stick it up the other end before a door would be slammed in their face.

However, when you're on the last lap of Rainbow Road on 200cc in first place, and a loud pounding on the front door breaks your concentration _just_ long enough to slip on a banana peel you had placed down earlier, causing motherfucking _Toad_ of all people to overlap you and take first place -as had just happened to Josuke- you're pretty liable to forget all that. Upon said humiliating defeat at the hands of a sentient fungi, the teen stomped over to the front door and practically ripped it off its hinges.

" **Hey, the Hell's your-!** " Josuke stopped mid-sentence when he saw who had been the one knocking. "Okuyasu? You okay, dude?"

Ouyasu stood in the doorway decidedly not okay. He had scrapes and scratches on his hands and in his arms he carried his jacket, which had been bundled up and soaked with what Josuke really hoped wasn't Okuyasu's blood. On top of that he looked frantic and like he was on the verge of tears. He shoved his bloodied bundle into Josuke's hands near incomprehensibly screaming at Josuke to "Hurry an' fix it!" and how "It was an accident!" and "Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck, dude…" Josuke looked at Okuyasu's jacket to see that a brown and white tabby cat was swaddled in it, to which Josuke echoed his friend's sentiments.

"Oh, fuck, dude."

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"Oku, you gotta calm down and tell me what happened," Josuke instructed his friend as he gingerly set the tabby on the coffee table and started unwrapping it to take a closer look.

Okuyasu wrung his hands together and blurted, "It-it-it jus' jumped in front of my bike and I c-couldn't brake in time, so I… You gotta fix it, Josuke! Your Stand can fix anything!"

"Not everything…" Josuke mumbled under his breath, followed by another "Fuck…"

The poor animal had definitely seen better days, that was for certain. And it didn't look like it was breathing. Still chancing the slight hope that it could pull through, Josuke hovered his and Crazy Diamond's overlapping hands over the tabby and felt the soft warmth of his ability at work. Slowly its wounds closed up and started to fill out again, but still no movement. There was an overly strung out beat of silence (and Okuyasu's sniffles) before Josuke cleared his throat.

"Uh. Sorry, Oku." Josuke said, gently putting a hand on his shoulder, "I think it was already dead by the time you got here."

All his friend replied with was a soft, "Oh."

Again, there was an uncomfortable silence before Josuke finally asked, "You wanna bury it in my yard or yours?"

* * *

Okuyasu dug through Josuke's closet to find a shoebox that currently wasn't in use storing his friend's expensive shoes while Josuke went to get his mother's gardening tools. Eventually he found a dogeared box that used to house a pair of children's sneakers. Okuyasu didn't really like thinking about it, but at the same time he kinda had hoped for something a bit nicer. He didn't want the poor thing to be uncomfortable in the afterlife.

Okuyasu joined Josuke in his backyard, where his friend already began digging a hole beneath a shrub with a trowel. Okuyasu gingerly put the unfortunate tabby in the shoebox and once the box had been good and buried, Josuke took a sharpie out of pocket and a smooth decorative stone from his mom's garden and wrote "ネコ" on it before placing it at the head of the tiny grave.

"'Cat'?"

"Yeah, 'cause it didn't have a name." Josuke explained. "I just thought it'd be nice…"

That was such a Josuke thing to do, always thinking of others. Even when they first met, Josuke always helped out others in small ways and Okuyasu couldn't help but think that was one of his charms. Always so kind, and nice, and cool, and here was Okuyasu, who was all brawn, no brains, destructive, and mean enough to run over a cat. It didn't matter to him that it was an accident, the deed was done and he was a jerk for doing so. His throat closed up and started stinging again. Oh yeah, and he was a crybaby too. Can't forget to add _that_ to the list.

"Hey man, you're not gonna cry again, are you?" Oh boy, here it comes. Josuke was going to chastise him for crying just like how Keicho used to, which in all honesty made him just feel worse. But to his surprise, Josuke slung his arm around his friend's shoulders and pulled him close for a hug.

"Oku, it's okay. The cat's gonna be in a better place now," he consoled.

"Y-You don't think I'm a jerk?" Okuyasu blubbered.

"What? No way, dude! You said it was accident, and unless you've somehow changed between now and last I saw you, you'd never hurt a fly. Besides," Josuke pulled away from the hug briefly to cup Okuyasu's face, thumbs breaking the tears streaks there, before touching their foreheads together. He whispered in a hush tone, "I think you're Great."

 _Great_. Josuke used that word a lot, but to Okuyasu it sounded different this time. He hugged Josuke tighter and there they stood for what felt like eternity, and what they both hoped was slightly longer than that.


End file.
